Scroll presented to Elsa Gye

Illuminated scroll presented to Elsa Gye on her release from prison by the Women's Social and Political Union. Designed by Sylvia Pankhurst such scrolls were presented to released Suffragette prisoners from 1908. The roundel at the top of the scroll includes a logo of two trumpeting angels with a central angel holding a banner marked 'Freedom'. The floral and berry decorative border is hand coloured in green, gold, yellow, blue and red. The dedication expresses the deep sense of admiration by the WSPU for Elsa's courage in enduring a long period of privationand solitary confinement in prison for the Votes for Women cause.
Elsa Gye (1881-1943) was born in London, educated at Croydon High School and then studied violin and singing at the Guildhall School of Music. In 1907 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union and subsequently served two periods of imprisonment for suffragette militancy. In February 1908 she was one of fifty women arrested for trying to enter the House of Commons during the Women's Parliament. For this offence she received a sentence of 6 weeks in the second division. The following February Elsa was again arrested with 28 fellow suffragettes for attempting to enter or 'rush' the House of Commons. Although most of those arrested received a sentence of one month in Holloway for this offence, Elsa was sentenced to 6 weeks due to her previous imprisonment the year before. From 1910 Elsa became a salaried organiser for the WSPU first in Derby, then in Camberwell. Lady Constance Lytton described her as 'a delightful girl, young and fresh-looking'. In 1911 Elsa married Will Bullock who took her name and became Dr Gye. They had three sons. In the late 1920s Elsa became secretary of the Suffragette Fellowship and was responsible for collecting much of the archive material that now forms the core of the Museum of London's suffrage collections.